GROWING GREEN BEANS
With the abundance of research coming out about how our reliance on animal sources for protein in our diet (eggs, cheese, meat) is one of the main causes of cancer, we should all be thinking of alternatives. Cancer doesn't just happen to "other people" - it can happen to you and me if we break the rules. And that means more legumes in the diet. Recent research from the Harvard School of Public Health, after following nearly 30,000 cancer-free men for 15 years, found that healthy men who ate an average of 2.5 eggs plus per week had an 81% higher risk of developing advanced prostate cancer compared with men who ate less than half an egg per week. Now, whilst one could shoot holes in that research, it does make one realise that too much animal protein is an awesome cancer risk. What's the problem with that research? Well, men who eat less than half an egg per week, are likely to be health-freaks. They are probably into oats and fish or Boston baked beans or hummus for breakfast for their protein, all four of which give protection against cancer. (ignore the spinach plant in the photo above that I left for seed)
GROWING GREEN BEANSAll beans are full of vegetable protein, phytosterols too, WHAT ARE PHYTOSTEROLS ? and really are very easy to grow, even in the smallest garden.BUSH BEANS
Bush beans have only one advantage. They bear much sooner than pole beans, so growing green beans in the larger garden means planting both a couple rows of bush beans AND pole beans once the danger of frost is over in early Spring. Growing green beans (bush) has several disadvantages: with all the stooping to reap and weed them you're going to be visiting the chiropractor more frequently! and they bear for a much shorter season. But they will bear a good month earlier. In the picture above, I've actually planted them right into the compost heap, see how they are thriving? but what you'd normally do is dig a small trench, and half fill it with compost, covering with the soil you dug out. Sow the seeds about an inch deep, and about 6" apart, in rows about 2 feet apart. (3cm, 15cm, 60cm). Or just dot a few seeds about amongst your annuals. They will fruit in about two months. Sow again about two weeks later. There's no point in planting again a third time as the pole beans will be fruiting by the time your third planting of bush beans are ready to harvest. POLE BEANSPole beans take a little more work the first season, making the teepee for them to grow on, but thereafter you'll be well pleased. But you could just plant three seeds every week, to grow up any fence, pole, bush, anything that will support the plants, and you'll have green beans right through the summer. The advantages of pole beans are:
So...
POLE BEANS ON A FIXED FENCEA fixed wire fence for growing your pole beans is obviously more stable, but it's not healthy to plant the same crop, year after year, in the same ground.After a crop of summer beans last year (below), followed by winter peas, both legumes, I've decided to rotate the crop. This year there is maize growing along this fence, taking advantage of the nitrogen that legumes fix into the soil. 
SAVE BEAN SEEDSRemember at the end of the season of growing green beans to keep back a few pods for seed. And keep only the best, those that are shrunken or discoloured will give you miserable plants. Click on the pic below for the link.
I'll be adding photos as these pole beans shoot up, every couple weeks. Meantime, you get started with your own! Just three seeds in any sunny part of the small garden is fine. Up a rose trellis? Witsa is our favourite variety; avoid Lazy Housewife. Tasteless. Some things never cease to amaze. Like a full moon, seen a thousand times, the first bean breaking through the earth is sight to behold, so full of promise. 
Why all this about GROWING GREEN BEANS on a Chiropractic Help website?Because nasties from the breast and prostate and, no doubt many other organs, caused by a lack of certain vital anti-cancer nutrients called anti-oxidants and phytogens, have a prediliction for the ribs, cervical spine and pelvis. Averting cancer through healthy living tips is at the heart of Chiropractic Help.
JACKAstonishing, one tiny little white seed, and now just eight weeks later we have a 10' beanstalk fit for Jack. And in two weeks we'll have fresh green beans, straight from the garden. For interest, I'm going to count how many beans this plant produces. Fifty?Exercise for the body, commune with Mother Nature and her Creator in the garden, watch the birds and the bees at work, good wholesome food on the table, much less prostate and breast cancer... what more can we possibly ask for than growing green beans? HEALTHY LIVING TIPSAside: America and Holland have the highest rates of breast cancer in the world. One is seven women. But it's not Russian roulette - research done in Holland confirms that it's too much animal protein that is the main cause. That and hormones after menopause - don't take them except in VERY EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES. Like severe depression... I don't buy into taking hormones to prevent osteoporosis. Rather walk to strengthen your bones, than get uterine or breast cancer. Good health is not a matter of chance; nor of good or bad luck, in the main. It's about following the known rules of life, and many of them you'll find at our
HEALTHY LIVING TIPS page... WOMEN'S HEALTH INITIATIVETwo very large studies of post-menopausal women taking either estrogen alone, or estrogen plus progestin, were stopped when it became obvious that the risk outweighed any benefits of post-menopausal hormone use. Those risks?
WALK RATHER, AND EAT A HEALTHY DIET! Try growing green beans! 
I counted 45 tiny bean pods ON ONE PLANT yesterday, and each contains half a dozen beans! Growing green beans. Sublime!
A gardener's delight. You've waited three months for them, and here are the first fruits. (Actually a later crop of pole beans planted in midsummer, bore in nine weeks) I said above that the crop from a climbing bean is double that of a bush bean. But now I reckon that each climbing bean will bear several hundred beans over the next two months. Thirty fold, sixty fold, hundred fold, two hundred fold... there's something biblical about our first fruits!
What could be more rewarding than a basket of fresh, young green beans, straight from the garden? I promise you, growing green beans is very rewarding, and not difficult; the worst is having to wait about two to three months.
Top 'n tail, 'em and straight into the pot with just a little boiling water.
Boil them hard for two to three minutes, depending on how crunchy you like them. Can you see the steam escaping from the pot?
Make up a sauce for the fruit of all that Growing Green Beans; start with a good slosh of olive oil benefits and pour in just a tad of the bean water, add salt, and perhaps a teaspoon of raw honey, and dribble the juice from the fruit of growing lemon trees ... to which I like to add a finely chopped clove of garlic and a touch of very finely chopped chilli. Some like it hot! How to grow chilli
GROWING LIMA BEANSFirst cousin, but much less well known, is the lima bean. Elsewhere we'll compare their nutritional benefits, but limas have one big disadvantage over the common runner bean: like most peas, you have to pod them. That's time-consuming, but we add the lima because you simply can't buy them, and for variation they are an excellent bean. I've tried making green bean succotash recipes and, whilst they are nutritionally and for taste excellent, it's not the real McCoy. Give me real sufferin' succotash with limas and corn. GROWING LIMA BEANS ...
NITROGEN FOR THE SOILOne other not unimportant benefit of legumes are their ability to put nitrogen back into the soil. Actually it's nitrogen fixation bacteria that live in little nodules on the roots of legumes like green beans and lima beans that produce the nitrogen. Nitrogen is vital for us, it's the basis of the amino acids in our bodies, and vital for other plants in the garden.Growing green beans, growing lima beans, more chickpeas and lentils... they all improve your health and with a bit of imaginative cooking are delicious.
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Your greens
WALNUTS BLOOD PRESSURE ... Broccoli and Walnut salad?
BROCCOLI WALNUT SALAD
PARSLEY BENEFITS
IRISH POTATO LEEK SOUP
FRESH SPINACH SALAD RECIPES
Your Yellows
Scrub the carrots, and slice thinly.
Whisk the other ingredients.
Pour the dressing over the carrots.
Ps: You could also par-boil the carrots.
GROWING BUTTERNUT SQUASH and a summer squash soup recipe
ORANGE JUICE FACTS
Your Reds
Easy TOMATO SOUP RECIPE
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT STRAWBERRIES
Your Purples
BEETROOT CONSTIPATION
HEALTHY LIVING TIPS
HEALTHY CHOICE FOODS